[Editor's note: The author's father, physician-author Joe Holoubek of Shreveport, Louisiana, was last interviewed for a March 23 Catholic Exchange Today podcast. The crucifixion scholar discussed the physical sufferings of Christ and new theories about His death.]
My father's final illness was mercifully brief. There was just enough time for all the children to gather at his bedside, the oldest traveling eight hours at sudden notice. Our last words to him were "Go with God. Walk with God."
But our hope had been that once again he would awake, arise, and leave the hospital where he had worked for 45 years, saving the lives of others.
An internist and consulting cardiologist, Dad retired from active practice in 1990 only to step up his studies of theology, religion and the crucifixion. At age 91, "Dr. Joe" read the newspaper daily, checked his e-mail, and followed links to news stories about issues of faith, morality, and medicine.
He also spent an hour in prayer, in the "room for God" he'd had built in the family home in 1963. Until our mother's death in 2005, they'd spent that hour of prayer together.
That final day, in the ICU waiting room, I marveled at the richness of Dad's life in the past three years, even as frailty sapped him of the strength to walk. Only the day before, friends had come over for lunch, bringing sandwiches, and lively conversation ensued about current events, family and the Church.
I reflected also on Dad's previous brushes with death. We almost lost him 14 years ago, and again in 2003 and 2005. "I knocked at the Pearly Gates," he once told me, "but St. Peter wouldn't let me in." Now I know why. He still had much left to give the world.
When first stricken with a difficult-to-diagnose autoimmune disease, Dad was semiconscious for three weeks. After recovering his health, he wrote about that experience. His article, "When One Is Too Sick to Pray," was published by the Catholic Medical Association in 1994.
"I could hear voices," he wrote, "but I could not see well and was too weak to move. My only contact with reality was the rosary that I held in my hand."
At first, he could only finger the beads and recite "Jesus. Lord Jesus Christ." Later, still unable to remember the mysteries of the rosary, he improvised. Each bead represented an event in the life of Christ. Day after day he imagined himself among the followers of Jesus, witnessing his miracles and cures.
His dreams were vivid — heightened, no doubt, by his medication — and often frightening. Again and again, in his delirium, he was in Nazareth when Jesus was accused of blasphemy. "I would deny Him or run away without defending Him," he recalled. Dad felt shame and guilt and despondence.
But invariably he turned back and ran toward Jesus. "I would always be forgiven and fall asleep in His arms."
That memory, the healing power of God's forgiveness, inspired more than a short article. It inspired Letters to Luke: From His Fellow Physician Joseph of Capernaum, a gospel-based novel Dad worked on for the next ten years. Published in 2004, Letters to Luke presents the ministry and death of Christ as seen by a 1st century physician. The main character, a man trained in the healing arts, writes his friend Luke of Antioch, recounting how he became a follower of a Nazarene named Jesus.
Letters to Luke earned the Writer's Digest Award for Inspirational Literature and the Independent Publisher Award for Religious Fiction. A paperback edition was released in 2006.
Dad was well enough to travel the region doing book signings and giving talks at churches. He continued to update the talks on the physical aspects of the crucifixion that he and my mother, also a physician, gave across the country for decades.
I was often his chauffeur, on weekends or vacation days from my newspaper work. At first, he carried canes, then a walker, then a wheelchair. Yet I never thought of him as disabled.
Like a man he much admired, Pope John Paul II, Dad defied the conventional wisdom about aging. He was truly involved with the world, giving as much as he was getting, until God called him home. It was Ascension Thursday.
This time St. Peter let him in.
Letters to Luke, published by Little Dove Press, is distributed through Baker & Taylor and CCC of America (800-935-2222). Copies may be ordered online at http://www.letterstoluke.com/ or amazon.com, by phone at 888-900-LUKE (5853) or through your local bookstore (ISBN 978-0-975376621).
